So, I am sitting in the dark, browsing CC on my phone right now, because the power is out in my area. This got me thinking about what I would do if the power went out while I am working on a cake. Do any of you have back-up plans for events that are out of your control, like a power outage? I live in a cottage law state, so I could go to my sister's to work on a cake, but if her power was out too, I'd be in trouble.

Circumstances beyond your control
No power, no can bake

If it was already baked, candle light might help when decorating

That happened to me last summer. The cake was already baked so it was just decorating.

I had one of those led lights that clips to a ball cap visor. I had to do all the frosting by hand. Not fun and was I sore. But it was for a big event at a well known venue and I could not just "not deliver".

I live in Alabama and that just happened to us in April when the tornadoes came through. It was on Wed. and I had just finished baking the wedding cake, had not bake the grooms cake. Fortunately we have a generator but it is not big enough to run the oven. Well we made icing with that power and decorated the wedding cake (we were out of power for 5 days) and I called the bride to let her know about the grooms cake. She said not to worry (so I refunded the money for the grooms) she was having a wedding no matter what (her venue did not have power). They brought in battery powered lighting and food from somewhere else. The place they rented tables and chairs from was blowed away so they scrounged up all sorts of tables and chairs. I did have a couple of layers in my freezer and scrounged up enough to make a small grooms cake (at no charge). And bless her heart she had a wedding. I also had another wedding that week but it was cancelled her venue was damaged. And she got married a couple of weeks later so it was no problem.

I hate to say that if you have a cake in the oven and no back up generator, you would be pretty much out of luck. You can buy backup generators that connect right in with your electrical box and kick on when your power goes out. If you are doing this as a business, you may want to look into it if you have a lot of power issues.

We had a really bad storm about 5 years ago where we lost power for 3 days. After that we got a generator.......and have never lost power since!!

justducky- Now THAT is creativity!

leepat- My heart goes out to your community. I was really touched by your story. Thanks for sharing.

justducky- Now THAT is creativity!

leepat- My heart goes out to your community. I was really touched by your story. Thanks for sharing.

I lost power for 8 days last June. 4 days without power and then one day on, and a second storm took it out for another 4 days. That was it. Since I live in the country, no power means the well doesn't work and you have no water once the tank empties which it does after 2 days. That was about all I wanted to put up with.

I now have a back up generator wired into the electric panel. If the power goes out for 30 seconds it kicks in automatically. This was not a inexpensive option but I really am relieved to have this back up system. If you consider doing this, get lots of estimates and carefully consider what they are selling you -size, brands etc. Mine ranged from $3,700 to $13,000.

Narie,

What did yours end up costing you, for future references. My husband and I have talked about this option.

pat

We have a generator, too. We're very prone to short outages, especially in the summer. The outages are definitely long enough to ruin a cake that's in the oven not quite done.

My caking was part of the reason for the generator, but we were also tired of losing food from the fridge & freezer.

Rae

I luckily had no order scheduled when the power went out. Found a place with Wi-Fi and posted on the website that we were closing until further notice due to power outage. But I stupidly took an order after about 3 days, because I ASSumed it would be on soon. It wasn't. Hauled EVERYTHING across town, borrowed a kitchen (thanks to a dear friend) and went to work baking and making all that would be needed. Ever hauled a larger Kitchen Aid mixer? Ain't easy. Cleaned the kitchen, then hauled it all back. In the daytime we have lots of light through the windows, so the next day I decorated. We do have a gas water heater which helps, but an electric stove and oven. I like to use hot spatulas when smoothing my cakes, but did surprisingly quite well without them. And washing dishes by hand really stinks! Turns out power came back on late on day 5, but cake was done and ready to go out the next morning.

When we built our house a year and a half ago, we had a whole house generator wired into the electric panel. It was a bit expensive to do but I hate not having power and we live in a rural area that loses power frequently. It has kicked on quite a few times and I am ever so thankful every time that we spent the extra to have one installed!

Yuck what a mess I'm glad you were able to get it done but I feel for you having to go through all that.

Back in 2007 we had an ice storm here. We lost power for 15 days. After that we bought a generator that stays connected to the house. When our power goes out it comes on. If you experience this sort of thing often enough you should look into getting one. I live in tornado alley so if the power isnt going off because of the ice in the winter its out because of some crazy storm in the spring/summer.

If this is just a once in a while incident for you Id just do exactly as you did, line up some folks who live far enough away that they may not be affected by the same outage and would let you use their kitchens.